iPhone/iPad iOS music making app round-up: Week 34

Sound 8, SAS-4As lite, plus iVoxel, Sample Lab, and Mixitkl updates

iPhone/iPad iOS music making app round-up: Week 34

New and improved

The updates are coming fast and furious this week, with some very cool apps getting even better. Mixtikl reaches its third gen, Sample Lab clocks in with MIDI and reverb features and, yeah, CoreMIDI gets added to yet another app. Plus another looper and a free synth!

Intermorphic Limited Mixtikl 3.0, £1.79 (free update)

Compatibility: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad (requires iOS 3.1.3 or later)

The generative music masterpiece gets a major (and free) update with goodies galore, including inline live synth editing of Partikl synth sounds and effects, inline live editing of Noatikl scale and harmony rule customisation, four unlocked Tiklpaks (for a total of over 380 parts) and loads of improvements and bugfixes. And it’s easier on the eyes, too!

VirSyn iVoxel 1.4.0, £6.99 (free update)

Compatibility: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad (requires iOS 3.1 or later)

VirSyn adds its powerful singing synthesizer to the growing list of apps that have jumped onto the CoreMIDI bandwagon, and thank goodness. The company has also brought individual filter band adjustment, pitch quantisation for the onscreen keyboard, polyphonic retriggering, a new delay effect and a number of bugfixes.

fotoh IIc Sample Lab 1.4, £5.99 (free update)

Compatibility: iPad (requires iOS 4.2 or later)

Yet another update, this time to the sample and sequencing powerhouse known as Sample Lab. There’s a new effect in the form of a reverb processor, a new sample browser and vastly expanded MIDI controller support. You can now use Akai MPDs and Korg’s nanoPad out of the box. Most impressive to us, however, is the addition of MIDI note, beat, clock and stop/start output.

Music Device Project SAS-4As lite, Free

Compatibility: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad (requires iOS 4.0 or later)

Music Device Project adds a free version of Its analogue synthesizer. This pared down version features the same OBXa-alike mix of dual oscillators, LFO, and resonant filter. There’s a single ADSR, portamento, and cross-mod. It sounds pretty good, too.

Oliver Grimm Sound 8, £1.19

Compatibility: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad (requires iOS 4.2 or later)

Another gestural music making tool, this one gives you an 8-track looper wherein each sound is represented by a coloured circle. Pitch and volume are manipulated either by touch or with your iOS device's built-in accelerometer. 16-bit mono WAV and AIFF files are supported.